H.265, the next generation video codec from the consortium that brought you the current Apple standard, H.264, has been approved by the International telecommunications Union (ITU). In a press release, the ITU said:

The new codec will considerably ease the burden on global networks where, by some estimates, video accounts for more than half of bandwidth use. The new standard, known informally as ‘High Efficiency Video Coding’ (HEVC) will need only half the bit rate of its predecessor, ITU-T H.264 / MPEG-4 Part 10 ‘Advanced Video Coding’ (AVC), which currently accounts for over 80 per cent of all web video. HEVC will unleash a new phase of innovation in video production spanning the whole ICT spectrum, from mobile devices through to Ultra-High Definition TV.

Downloading 1080p files that are half the size will be great. When Ultra HD (aka 4K, aka 2160p) goes into broader released, we'll see what file sizes those monsters end up having. at 4 times the pixels, even half the size will still be twice as big as 1080p. And that's if/when Apple chooses to adopt it and integrate support for it into iTunes, and into iOS devices, most especially the Apple TV. Since they only added 1080p last year, it could be a bit of a wait... Hopefully H.265 support for 1080p will be faster.

Reader comments

Very nice. I'm looking forward to faster downloads and higher resolution. I'm sure Apple will be all over h.265 much faster simply because the market for streaming is so much larger than when h.264 was ratified.